My 10 Tips for Being Better at Social Media Marketing
Every now and then someone will find out that I was a social media manager in my past life and they’ll ask me for tips for how to improve their social media marketing. The internet has a LOT of great resources available, so I never know what exactly to tell people except to check out Social Media Examiner, because they were my favorite resource for all the things related to social media when that was my job.
However, there are some fairly common mistakes that I see people, especially my friends and family members with small businesses, making that are super simple fixes.
Tailor your photos to your platform.
This is my biggest pet peeve because it’s the easiest one to fix! Why cut off your image or mangle it when you can use a tool like Canva to size your social media images to the platforms you’re using. (Also, Canva is a fabulous tool to create images for social media. It’s free and easy and I don’t know what I would have done without it.) Don’t know what dimensions work best for each platform? Check out Sprout Social’s Cheat Sheet.
Take advantage of scheduling tools.
No one thinks they have time to constantly be adding content to social media and that is a straight up lie. Set aside one hour a week and schedule out all of your content for the week in advance. It super easy to schedule posts on Facebook and to use free tools like Tweetdeck to schedule promotional tweets. Got a little extra $$? Try out a social media management tool like Buffer to schedule posts across multiple platforms.
Use IFTTT (If This, Then That) to cross post content.
(I say this with the caveat that IFTTT let’s other people know that you’re being lazy and using it to post the same content to multiple channels. I think this can be a bit impersonal and can feel a little cheap. This could just be me though.)
That being said, IFTTT is a fantastic way to get content onto multiple platforms without having to put in a lot of work. Just set up your formulas for what you want to post and where and BAM! Every time you post something to Instagram, you post it to Twitter too. Or everything you post to Twitter get posted to Facebook. Or some other combination. It's really quite something.
Set aside time weekly to find out what’s trending and tailor your content towards those things.
It doesn’t have to be a lot of time, especially if you're someone who already pays attention to the news and to what people are talking about on Facebook or Twitter. Just take note of what that content is and if you can spin it to apply to your business. Use that as fodder for one or two timely posts a month and all of a sudden you are using SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies in your marketing. It also shows your followers that you’re in the know and care about what’s going on in the world, which never hurts.
Choose platforms that you will actually use and get rid of the rest.
You do not have to be on every new social media platform that arises, I promise.
Your social media marketing is only as good as the content you create, so if you know that you’re not ever going to use Instagram to promote your business, it’s okay to go ahead and delete that account. Focus your attention on platforms that you’re comfortable with creating content for. You’ll find that you have more time to create engaging content for the social media platforms you actually care about and your followers will definitely appreciate it.
(If you decide to delete a social media account or two, just make sure that you update your website to reflect the platforms you're using. Nothing is worse than clicking on a social media icon only to discover a broken link.)
Interact with your community.
A lot of people forget that social media should be ... social. Reply to comments on your posts! Thank people for leaving reviews! Comment on other posts that are relevant to your business! Get in there and let people know who you are and what you do! Creating opportunities for conversation is an important aspect of social media marketing that I see a lot of people forgetting.
I hated this when I was working in social media, but the hard truth is that video is VERY important to your social media marketing. It got big around 2014 and it is not going away. Accept it now and move on.
The good news is that it's pretty easy to create videos for your social media platforms using a smartphone or tablet. And you don't even need a YouTube channel to do it. (Although I suggest you create one for a video archive, if nothing else. You don't have to advertise that it's there.)
Set up an information session where you answer basic questions about your business. Take your followers on a virtual tour of your space. Schedule a live Q&A. Show off something you think is super cool. Video, especially live video, has become a mainstay for social media marketing.
My advice for video is to try to keep your pre-recorded videos pretty short (under 30 seconds) and your live videos at least 15 minutes long. Short pre-recorded videos mean that people will actually be able to watch the whole thing while they're scrolling through their feed and longer live videos allow for more time for viewers to engage with you.
Respond to comments (And turn on your notifications).
I touched on this earlier, but it bears repeating. Social media should be social. And in the social media world, your response times should be FAST. Many experts say that you should never let a comment or post sit there without interaction for more than 60 minutes. I personally think that this is overkill, especially if you’re a small business owner who has a lot on your plate. But don’t make your followers wait longer than 24 hours for a response either.
If you don’t have notifications for your social media turned on, do that now. It’s so much easier to respond to comments in a timely manner if you are actually aware that a comment has been made on one of your posts.
Be a resource for your followers.
Please don’t post nothing but promotional content. Your followers aren’t going to be engaged with your social media you if all you do is post promotional. At the very best, they will just start to ignore your posts; at the very worst, they will unfollow you.
Instead, share an article relevant to your business with commentary about why you found it interesting. Review a book or a recipe (as long as you can tie it back to your business). Share other people’s videos or a quote that inspires you. Your followers want your expertise and will rely on you to provide them with reliable information regarding your work. Some of the very best social media accounts for small businesses that I follow barely share any promotional content and they have the most loyal fan bases of anyone on the internet.
If you don't pay attention to anything else in this article, pay attention to this. You should be a real person when you're writing social media posts for your business.
People buy from people. They might follow you on social media for your brand, but they’ll pay attention to your posts because you’re a person they like and care about. So use personal pronouns and share selfies. Don't use overly formal language. Tell stories about your day or something funny that happened on your way to work. Give the humans who follow you a chance to know who you are as a person and what you care about. I promise, it will pay off.
